Fox News has a unique relationship with its audience, and it’s not a good one. The network tells its viewers that they can only trust Fox News and no one else. This messaging is similar to that of a creepy husband in a Lifetime movie who tells his wife, “I’m the only one you can trust!” Other mainstream media outlets do not treat their audiences like captive cult members, but Fox News does.
Tucker Carlson has been pushing Trump message
One of the biggest proponents of this message is Fox News host Tucker Carlson. He has been telling his audience for years that the rest of the media is knowingly lying to them, specifically because they hate Donald Trump. According to Carlson, reporters hate Trump with an all-consuming mania, and progressives despise him so much that they’ve begun to dislike the country that elected him. Carlson has been questioning why certain types of people with certain types of jobs hate Trump so much.
However, recent events have revealed that Carlson’s views on Trump were much different in private. In a new cache of messages contained in a court filing from Dominion’s ongoing defamation lawsuit against Fox News, Carlson expressed his hatred for Trump passionately. He even insulted and denigrated Trump in private while claiming that it was everyone else who had succumbed to intense Trump hatred in public. Carlson called Trump a liar, made fun of his businesses, and criticized his legal team’s election lies.
Carlson continues to push his lies and agenda
Despite these new revelations, Tucker Carlson is still doing his shtick. He aired a report on the insurrection on January 6th, claiming that the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy. His cherry-picked footage was so transparently false that even Republican leadership called it out. Various GOP senators called it “dangerous and disgusting” and “a lie,” and one even went so far as to call Tucker’s report “bull[bleep].”
In conclusion, the relationship between Fox News and its audience is unique and very weird. Fox News tells its viewers that they can only trust them and no one else. Tucker Carlson has been a significant proponent of this message, but recent court filings have revealed that his views on Donald Trump were much different in private. Despite this, Tucker Carlson is still pushing his propaganda and misinformation, which is not good for American democracy.